CHAMP CAR: Saturday Toronto Notebook

Showing there is no lingering animosity with Sebastien Bourdais, Team Minardi USA invited the Frenchman for a special ride in the two-seater Minardi F1 car today in Toronto. Bourdais' passenger? His father Patrick.

"He loved it," said the junior Bourdais later. "I've driven him in a C52 Courage (sports car) but never something like this. I've got to say thanks to everyone for giving us the opportunity."

And how did the Minardi two seater compare to the McDonald's Panoz DP01-Cosworth single seater?

"Well, the two seater is not set-up particularly for this track," said Bourdais. "So it has its problems. But that's the way it should be, I think. It makes it more exciting for the passenger . . . and the driver, too!"

VETERANS SHINE

Bruno Junqueira and Jan Heylen both achieved seasonal best qualifying efforts today, with the former slotting into fifth spot at 58.675s in the Dale Coyne Racing Panoz and the latter eighth at 58.816s in the Conquest Racing entry. Not bad for two of the more modestly budgeted teams in the paddock, particularly given that Junqueira ended yesterday's qualifying session by taking the nose and left front suspension off the Sonny's Bar-B-Q entry with a shunt in Turn Eight.

Although the team fixed the car for this morning's qualifying session, Junqueira only got a couple of laps in during the fifteen minute pre-qualifying practice before stopping with a decidedly sick sounding engine.

Happily, Junqueira's a change of plugs and coil put the car right again and the Brazilian repaid his hard working crew members with their best starting spot of the season.

"I said yesterday I thought we had a top five car," Junqueira joked. "I should have said we had a top three car.

"I think maybe there was another tenth in the car, but I locked up the brakes and went straight on in Turn One on what was going to be my banzai lap. But that's OK. The guys did a good job last night fixing the car from yesterday's crash, then again this afternoon with the problems we had in practice. To qualify in the top five is good, it is I think where we should be if everything goes well for us. If we start in the top five then I think we can finish on the podium and, maybe with a little luck, win a race."

Heylen — like any racer including Junqueira — thought he could have done better, despite (or because) posting his best lap on his final lap.

"I'm a little disappointed that I didn't get my fast lap until the end," he said. "The tires are at their best on the third or fourth lap and I didn't do my time then, or it might have a been a tenth or two better. Still I'm really happy for the team. We've had a lot of bad luck lately and the crew has worked really hard to get us here.

Get inside Champ Car racing each month in RACER. In our August issue, on sale now, David Phillips gets Graham Rahal's views of the state of the sport and his place in it.

"It's tough for us. We haven't done much running (Heylen joined the team prior to Portland and has only done two and a half days of testing. "Every session we're deciding what to do, there's so much we haven't even tried on the car yet, so much we haven't learned. It's tough, so to get a good grid spot on one of the toughest tracks in the series is good."

ROOKIES NOT SO MUCH

Perhaps it's no coincidence that Junqueira and Heylen qualified in the top ten. By common consent, the Toronto street circuit is as tough — or tougher — a challenge as any street circuit on the Champ Car World Series schedule. Witness the fact that, apart from Simon Pagenaud, the only rookie in the top ten is Neel Jani. Meanwhile, Mont-Tremblant winner and co-leader in the CCWS points standings coming into Toronto, Robert Doornbos could do no better than twelfth while Mont-Tremblant pole sitter Tristan Gommendy is 14th.

"It's a tough track," said Bourdais. "It's a tough track to know what a good car feels like. I think the perfect car at Toronto doesn't exist. You're going to have to accept and live with some problems and just know what you should just live with and what you need to fix. That's the tough thing.

"You know, I think it's very easy to get lost in the setup when you're in your first year. I've been there before. It was really hard the first year. I'd have to say it was the toughest for me. For sure, as a rookie, it's always a tough place."

Pagenaud echoes those thoughts, despite having raced here last year in Champ Car Atlantic.

"There is nothing to compare between this track in Atlantic and a Champ Car," he said. "The Champ Car is heavier, it doesn't turn the same way as the Atlantic. It doesn't put the power down the same way and there's not the same braking points. Anyway, you arrive at the turns going a different speed. For sure it helps when the car is right but there is still more speed to find in me than in the car."

Pagenaud's Champ Car Atlantic rival Graham Rahal certainly found the going tough in Toronto, searching for grip in the rough and tumble braking zones and doing no better than 15th in the sister car to that which Bourdais planted on pole — by all of .011s.

"The situation is frustrating," he said. "I don't think we've made any gains at all this weekend. In fact, we lost ground after running eighth in provisional qualifying. It's embarrassing for me that we are so far back. I've never been in this position in my entire career. I don't understand why we are where we are and I can't make up the difference on the track."

LEGGE OUT

Bruno Junqueira's fifth place qualifying run for Dale Coyne Racing was offset by Katherine Legge's crash midway through the session. Legge, who had been an encouraging ninth fastest yesterday, lost control exiting Turn One and clobbered the wall, taking off the front wing and damaging the left front suspension on her Panoz in a crash eerily reminiscent of that that befell her teammate in Turn Eight yesterday. Indeed, Legge took encouragement from the fact that Junqueira rebounded from Friday's setback to qualify fifth today.

"The rear of my car just stepped out on me going over the crest and stuck me into the wall," she said. "The good thing is that my teammate Bruno had the same damage done to his car yesterday and the team gave him an even faster car today."

POWER PENALIZED

Will Power operated under a severe handicap in qualifying today, forced to sit-out the critical last eight minutes of qualifying by Champ Car as penance for blocking Bruno Junqueira in yesterday's qualifying session. Power did suffer the consequences, forced to watch as his fifth fastest time in the first part of the session (58.790s) became seventh fastest by the end of qualifying.

"In the end we just needed a tenth and a bit to be up there," said Power. "I think sitting out the last eight minutes cost us a little bit, because everyone went a little bit quicker in the end there."

"At the end of qualifying is where all of the time is and you can see at the end of the session with the last two minutes is where all of the time is," said team owner Derrick Walker. "Unfortunately we couldn't run due to the penalty from the misunderstanding yesterday..."

Other drivers offered mixed reviews on whether the Draconian penalty resulted in more sportsman-like behavior today.

"I didn't feel an improvement myself," said Oriol Servia. "But in a track like this, you know, you have a lot of cars at the same time on track, you're always going to have people in front. I mean, they are not trying to give you a hard time. They're just trying to pace themselves."

"I didn't see the incident (yesterday)," said Justin Wilson, but I know Tony (Champ Car vice president of operations Tony Cotman) is pretty disappointed in the driver etiquette out there. I think it's good they start coming down hard on people if you do something blatant. Like I say, I didn't see it. He obviously felt it was time to make a point."

"It's not about penalties really," offered Sebastien Bourdais. "We're not asking for tough penalties; we're just asking for everybody to kind of be working with the same rules. If someone decides that it's not, then it's a shame and it should not happen."

CHAMP CAR ATLANTIC FIRST?

Brazil's Rafael Matos earned his fourth pole of the 2007 Champ Car Atlantic season today, edging Mont-Tremblant winner Franck Perera by .255s. Matos can put his name in the record books tomorrow with a win, as no one other than a Canadian or an American driver has ever won the Atlantic race at Toronto.